Captured Moments
by Merlynnod
Summary: A series of vignettes, everyday scenes and moments from the life and times of Frodo and his family, my own version of his happy ending.


This story is a continuation of the "Darkness Into Light" Story arc that I created several years ago out of a desire for Frodo to have his happy ending. The stories are AU, but then, what good fan fiction isn't little more than our desire to play in a world created by someone else, but filled with characters and moments and creatures we long to interact with as well.:) Enjoy, and feedback is always greatly appreciated.:) Stories follow Movie!Frodo in appearance, but work with either book or movie in events and timeline. :)

March 29th 1429 S.R.

Wide blue eyes looking up at me with such innocence, such trust, such love…such life…in so small a thing…Something born entirely of living and happiness and wonder and joy… Nothing dark, nothing evil to taint her tiny form. How incredible she seems, to hold so much in her tiny, tiny hands. So much to look out from her wide blue eyes…Does she see what could have been? Does she know what could have become of the world in which she so recently joined together into? Will she ever know of what was lost, what was taken…all to give her this chance, this bright and infinitely possible future…so much in so small a form…

June 15th 1439 S.R.

I can hear their giggling, they don't realize I know what they're up to, and they think they are being oh-so-clever. I smile at the memories of Merry and I doing the same thing, and surely dear Bilbo was in just this position as I now find myself. They have decided to find a secret place, one where they think Daisy's brothers will never find them. I wonder if I should tell them that behind the rose bushes has already been taken, Primrose plays back there now and again. It won't be a secret for long. But then again, perhaps I should let them enjoy their game while they can…let them adventure and scheme in the short time allowed them by fate. Yes…and perhaps in the end, they will let Primrose join them in their little game, the lass would love that. Hmmm. 

November 10th 1437 S.R. 

"And then what happened, Da?" the young lass asked, dark brown eyes shining up at him from her place on his lap, begging for the story to go on, always wondering as to what would happen next. 

"I really don't know Dilly my love, that's all anyone ever told me. What do you think might have happened next?" her father answered, a smile gracing his features, pulling his mouth up into a familiar quirk, his blue eyes wide and welcoming. 

She loved to see him like that, it made her feel warm and loved and so very safe. Da was happy…but right now she had a story to settle. 

"Well, what about the beautiful maiden and the handsome elf have another adventure, it seems as though they would be bored after all those journeys to just come home and have tea and luncheon and all that other normal day-to-day. Maybe they decided to visit Fangorn Forest, and met Treebeard! I know Uncle Pippin talks about him a lot, especially since the Ents are friends to us now. Yes, I do think that next the beautiful maiden and the handsome elf went off into the depths of Fangorn Forest…" the chestnut-haired lass trailed off, unsure as to just why she had sent the characters of the story to the now peaceful forest. 

Before she could go further, her father asked the obvious question. "So, love, why did they go and disturb old Treebeard? Perhaps they had heard some news of the Entwives? Or there were some marauding orcs coming their way?" 

Giggling to herself, she playfully swatted her father's shoulder, replying, "No, silly, the orcs are all gone, King Strider has gotten rid of them all. But yes, I think that the maiden and the elf had heard about some Entwives, and they needed to tell the Ents about them quickly, before the wives moved on again…"

May 1421 S.R. 

They have fallen asleep together again…such a funny pair those two are. Rosie and I were talking about that just the other day…she's his daughter alright. No doubt about that one. Just like him…and his mother before him. I don't remember Primula well, more of a childhood memory of warmth and laughter…but I do remember the stories of her and Drogo from Brandy Hall. All that storytelling was bound to put them both to sleep in the end. I wonder if I should wake them for tea, or let them sleep until supper. 

They look so angelic, the two of them…her dark curls in disarray, one small thumb in her mouth, curled up there against his chest. And him, the same dark curls, but with a broadening hint of gray, gentle blue eyes veiled in sleep. The soft rise and fall of their breathing, I can so easily imagine the steady, lullaby rhythm of his heart so close to her head.

July 1437 S.R. 

"Da?" 

"Yes, Dilly?" 

"Why is the sky blue?"

"Well…uhm…because the Valar made it that way?"

"Oh…alright. Why did they make it that way?"

"Uhmmm…"

March, 1429 S.R. 

Her hands are so tiny…so very, very small…delicate, short little digits, skin so soft and white. Perfect. So petite as to almost seem insignificant in the world of such great things, and yet they are so valuable, so very dear. She has just started to curl her fingers around my own, her entire fist only able to encompass one of my fingers. There are no scars, no spots or imperfections on her baby fine skin, no evidence of rough play or long afternoons of sewing, writing, working; all those everyday activities that serve to portray the passing of time and … life. She is so new, so innocent, perfect and small. Her life is at the beginning of its span…"Down from the door where it began…" 

This is the door from whence her life begins, the beginning of all she will be, and do, and live for. A beginning…

November, 1437 S.R.

I made a pie for Da today. Mum helped me, as it was my very first time to make anything in the kitchen. Daisy's mother and Elanor let her help sometimes too, but she has never made anything all her own before. But I have. Just today in fact. I hope Da likes my pie. Mum says it may look a little funny, but it should taste quite fine, after all, it just gets mushed around in your mouth anyway. I think she was worried that I felt bad because one side is higher than the other where I put too many apples in, and how the crust is more smooshed than crinkled nicely the way Mum is able to do it. I'm not worried though, Da can't make the pies look right either. They always fall in the middle, and they don't taste very good at all…Mum just laughs when Da tries to cook and shoos him out of the kitchen. She says she doesn't know how he managed to keep from starving during those years after Great Uncle Bilbo left. I'm not really sure what she's talking about though…I think it was a time before the Quest, and that makes Da sad to talk about. He wrote it all down though, there in the big Red Book. He told me that when I'm older, I can read it all the way through. Now he only reads me the funny parts, or the happy parts, just the things that give him that thoughtful, far-away look to his eyes. But that's another story, as Uncle Merry likes to say. Oh! Mum says it's time for dinner, so I'd best be going…need to make sure Da gets a piece of my very first pie!

September 27th 1421 S.R. 

Melilot hates that look, the one where he seems to be off at another place…another time. She knows he is thinking about what would have been…could have been…perhaps even should have come to pass for all of them. The blank, far away dreamy look, the one where his blue eyes take on that darker, sea-in-a-thunderstorm color, unfocused and pensive; and that sad, sad smile that's really more of a grimace twists his features into someone she doesn't recognize. 

That is the look he wears when he wonders…and Meli doesn't like for him to wonder. To remember, to think of what has been. It scares her. The Ring, and the Journey, and the evil…all so real and yet almost terrifyingly impossible…it seems a horribly fantastic dream that he even came back at all…and he knows it. They all do. He, and Mayor Samwise, and Cousin Merry and Mister Pippin…they all know what the likelihood was, and none truly expected to ever return. Meli worries that by thinking too much about what could have been, the what is could be destroyed, taken away from them all forever. Just as it was allowed to begin, perhaps beyond the watchful eyes of scheming fate, it could be taken away, and the present would become one of the could-have-beens. 

Melilot doesn't like those thoughts. 

Yule, 1427 S.R. 

He loves the way she laughs when he twirls her 'round like that. You can see it there, like a little spark in his eyes. During the quest I wondered sometimes if he'd ever get that look back…And then when I married my sweet Rosie that midsummer day, and he looked so sad; like a dog left out all night in the rain. I don't know if anyone else could rightly see it, but I could, and I've always had a suspicion Rosie could too. I think that's why she brought Mistress Meli up to Bag End that afternoon a few months after. Rosie's always been good at lookin' after a hobbit when she's of a mind to. I'm certainly glad she took an interest in Mr. Frodo like that. It's done him a world o' good it has. 

I remember when we were younger, before the Quest and all that horribleness. He used to dance, did Mr. Frodo, laugh and bounce and swing around with any lass who was willin'. It was like 'e was a different person during those parties, not that quiet, bookish Master he was all the other times. Now he only dances with her -- well, and when he plays with my little Ellie. How Mistess Meli laughs when he plays with Elanor and Frodo lad…she loves to see him so happy and not hurting, being able to remember how good it all was…before. 

But for now, there they go, spinning and skipping along in perfect time, so light and bouncy and quick. Frodo's wearing his good weskit and velvet coat, the gold watch chain of his father's shining from his pocket. And Mistress Melilot, she's dressed up in a wine red gown, full skirts and ribbons in her dark red hair, beaming up at him, laughing breathlessly all the while. Light seems to shimmer from them both, highlighting his dark curls and her auburn tresses, catching the gold of his buttons and the seed pearls at the hem of her skirts. Everywhere they go a whirlwind of laughter, of color, of light. She's his precious now. 

July 27th 1436 S.R. 

"And what does this letter sound like?"

"Uhh…Buh? Does it make a sound like Buh, Da? I can't remember that one very good…"

Two dark brown heads were bent over the cluttered old desk in the study of Bag End. The older head, now liberally streaked with silver, nodded in approval, pleased that the hobbit lass was getting on so well. 

"Not good, love, 'I don't remember that letter as well,' he gently corrected."

The pair were settled down into a single chair, the lass sitting upon her father's lap, both looking down at a sheet full of carefully described letters and numbers. Slowly, the gentlehobbit took an elegant forefinger along the neatly written letters, requesting the sounds made by each. The progress had been slow at first, a few days ago, but had picked up quickly as the lass proved to be a quick learner. Soon she would move on to short words and easy sentences. 

"Da?" the lass asked, still young enough to speak with a slight lisp to her words.

"Yes, Prim?" her father answered, a smile lighting up his eyes as he looked upon her soft features. 

"How did you learn to say your letters? Were you as old as me when you started? When will Dilly start learning how to say her letters?" the hobbit child asked, too eager and bouncing in her thoughts to leave space for answers between. 

Laughing slightly, the gentlehobbit interrupted before the child in his lap could go on. "Well, to answer your questions, Dilly will learn to read when she is older, closer to your age now. She can't even talk yet, after all," he paused with a smile at the chagrined grimace of the child in his lap. 

"Further, I was just the same age you are now when I started learning to read, way back a long time ago when I still lived at Brandy Hall. But that was before your Uncle Merry was the Master. Back then, he wasn't even born yet." 

"So where was he then? Where are hobbits before they're born, Da?" interrupted the lass, her small eyebrows pulled together as she frowned in confusion. 

Startled by such a question, her father was silent for a moment, casting about for a suitable answer. Finally deciding upon the staple of adults-who-don't-wish-to-answer-difficult-questions, his response was to stall.

"Well, uhm, I'm not sure right now, dearest, I'll see if I can find out for you. Do you still want to know about how I learned to read?" he asked.

"Oh, yes! Yes, yes. Sorry Da," the blue-eyed child answered, snuggling up closer to her father's chest as he cleared his throat to continue onward in his narrative. 

"Well, I learned to read from my mother, the one you're named for. She would set me up at the table in her parlor, propped up on cushions from the sofa so that I was tall enough to sit in one of the good chairs. She would sit with me and work on embroidery or mending, depending on what needed to be done. And I would sit next to her, looking at some old school books of my father's, left over from when he was a hobbit lad a long time before. I would carefully read out my letters and numbers to her, and she would help me when I got stuck or couldn't remember what one word or letter sounded like. And we did that for several years, up until I was able to read and write the same way a grown-up hobbit would. She also told me stories about her family and my father when he was a lad, histories of the families of the Shire, and my own family tree as well. Other times she would give me a math problem to solve so that I could learn my sums and subtractions." 

"Later on, after I moved to Hobbiton to live here with your Great Uncle Bilbo, he taught me how to speak Elvish; how to write it properly and to pronounce the words in as much the way the Elves did as a non-elf can master. I learned Elvish at this very same desk you sit in now, though I was always too big to sit on Bilbo's lap." Frodo finished with a playful nudge to his small daughter. 

She giggled for a moment, and then went silent, apparently trying to take in the fact that her father had learned how to read and write just as she was doing now. It was a strange thing to think that her father had once been a lad himself…it sometimes seemed that her father had never been a lad, had simply sprung up from somewhere, fully a grown-up, wise and sad and gentle. 

"Hmm. Does that mean that someday, when I'm older and I know all my letters and numbers and I can even write them and read them in books and stories, then you'll teach me how to speak to elves? I know there aren't many elves left anymore…and maybe by the time I'm old enough to learn their letters I won't be able to find one to talk to…but I'd still like to know how, just in case. Will you teach me later, Da?" the lass asked, looking up to her father, face shining with child-like wonder and innocence. 

Smiling gently down, her father answered. "Yes, my Prim. And I don't think that all the elves will be gone before you can learn how to speak to them. In fact, I know of one very special elf Queen who will be here in Middle Earth for a long time to come. I'm sure that she would be happy to speak to you once you've learned how. But first, you have to know Westron," the older hobbit finished, looking back down at the sheet before him and choosing another letter. 

Looking to the symbol for a moment, the lass was quick to answer. 

"That one's easy, it's a Puh sound, just like how you say Prim! I know that one Da!" the lass answered, blue eyes sparkling with amusement at having outwitted her scholarly father. 

"Oh, well then in that case, let's find you a hard one then!" her father playfully goaded, ruffling her black-brown curls, imprinting upon his memory that afternoon, keeping it safe for later. Perhaps to be written up one day a long time hence, and later to be read by other hobbit lasses and their fathers. 

July 1444 S.R.

My Da is old, at least that's what Bilbo-lad Gardner says when he wants to tease me. Da is going to be seventy-six this September. Bilbo's Da is only sixty-four, which, according to Bilbo, isn't old at all. I think Billbo's just a ninnyhammer. I was thinking about it the other night though, wondering if maybe Da really is old…Mayor Samwise does act a lot younger than Da…but Mum says that Da has always been the way he is now, quiet and liking to write in his study instead of coming out and playing in the garden. He was not very pleased that afternoon when Ruby and I brought him some worms…he said they belonged outside, and were not be brought into smials. But he got that look, the one he gets when he's trying very hard not to scrunch up his nose and stick his tongue out at us, so he couldn't have been too angry.

But about my Da being old…I started watching him after Bilbo said that the first time, and then I was worried for a bit. Da does tend to be slow in the mornings, and after he's been sitting by the fire too long, he makes creaking noises…like the rocking chair when it needs to be polished and oiled. I hope I don't ever creak like that. And when we go and have picnics at the Water, or when we take walks when we're in Buckland, Da has to rest more often than Uncle Merry and Uncle Pippin. And he gets tired when we play for too long. I've never seen Mayor Samwise get tired. Sometimes I think he might work all the time in the garden if Mistress Rose didn't come and shoo him inside or to some official Mayor meeting now and again. I like Mistress Rosie, she makes very good jelly roll with strawberry conserve. Even better than Mum's, and that's a pretty good jelly roll. Da once told me that he agreed, but that we could never tell Mum, because she might get us back by refusing to cook, or even worse, going on a visit to Buckland, and leaving Prim and I here alone with only Da to make dinner! That's just cruel…Da writes good stories, but he can't make any sort of food. It always tastes very yucky, or is hard and brown and icky…and sometimes it doesn't even look like food at all anymore... If Mum stayed gone too long, Prim and I would just have to beg Mayor Samwise and Mistress Rose to adopt us, and keep us from starving to death. 

I think the Ring made Da different from the other fathers. I think he had to work so hard, and so long to get it up to Mount Doom and throw it in, and that's why he has to rest more often. Maybe he's still tired from carrying it. Maybe if he could just get enough rest, then he'd be able to be alright again, and he could be as strong as Mayor Samwise, and we could go on romps all over the Shire and never, ever have to rest, not even once! Well…we'd have to stop for dinner and things like that, but only when we wanted to, or were hungry. That would be nice. Maybe Da really is old…and Bilbo-lad is right. But then again…sometimes when Da plays with me, or when he's telling us all a story, and his eyes get round and wide and so full of the story, and they have that shine to them…He doesn't seem old at all then. He seems like maybe he's really about my age, or maybe even Bilbo's. It's like he's a little lad again, and he's having a great adventure with all of us there in the story telling. When Da looks like that, he's not old at all. He's just my Da. 

October 1439 S.R. 

A familiar figure was seated before the merry fire, a figure who had graced Bag End for many, many years, and would now, it seemed, be there for many more. It was late evening, and the stars had recently come fully out, lighted by a bright and somehow cheerful moon on that late fall evening. The air outside the smial had a definite chill to it, especially as night had fallen, but within the time-honored walls, all was warm and snug. 

The gentlehobbit was dressed in a fine white shirt of linen, his burgundy embroidered waistcoat unbuttoned and draped loosely about his lithe frame. His hands were stained with ink, and he would come to find the next morning that he had sported a large black stain above his right eye the better part of the afternoon. His family had found it too amusing to tell him about, though he had wondered about the quickly stifled giggles from a young lass, not to mention his wife's wry grin at surreptitious moments. The stains serving as evidence of a morning of writing, only to have been forcibly pulled from his study to enjoy the burgeoning fall weather from the garden by his wife and oldest daughter. Shortly thereafter the Mistress Rose and Mayor Samwise had come to pay a brief visit for tea, ending the busy afternoon with three teenagers, nine children, one infant, and four parents between them. The sheer ratio was enough to leave all four adults tired and ready for bed by the time dusk had begun to fall and sleepy children were lead to homes and baths and bed.

Dinner had been a quiet affair, not much cooking, mostly just the remnants of afternoon tea and leftovers from the evening before. Soon, two hobbit lasses had been tucked in for the night by a sleepy mother, who quickly followed suit herself, with an admonishment to her husband to come to bed soon. The gentlehobbit had settled himself in front of the fire, book in hand, ready for an hour or so of reading before following the suit of his wife and daughters. But, before he had even finished the first few pages, his head had fallen, and his eyes had closed unbidden, surrendering him to a world of dreams. 

Soon after he had fallen asleep, a dark-haired hobbit lass had stumbled her way into the parlor, seeking to wish her father goodnight. Upon finding him, she had wearily climbed up into his lap, in order to kiss him on the cheek. Finding him unresponsive to her climbing, save a few muttered words about bread and butter, a sigh, and a slight grin as she had kissed him, the lass felt herself also unduly tired. Her father was warm, and soft in his cambric weskit, and the fire was making a lovely sound in the hearth…perhaps just a few moments curled up next to him would not be amiss, she could then scurry back to bed. And, as always in times and places such as that, the few minutes became a few hours, and the lass was found the next morning curled up on her father's lap, her head tucked just beneath his chin, his waistcoat gripped in one small hand. Both figures smiling peacefully as they slept on. 

The following morning, the Mistress of the smial was the first awake, and after donning a dressing gown over her night shift, began her morning routine of stoking the fires and beginning breakfast for her husband and daughters. She was slightly surprised to find that her spouse was not in bed, and upon checking the room her daughters shared, finding only one sleeping daughter. Shrugging slightly, she was certain they were both together, and therefore could not be getting into too much mischief, and set to finishing her morning routine. She had started in the kitchen, but soon remembered that the parlor fire would need to be properly rekindled, and hurried into the adjoining room. There she found her missing husband and daughter, curled peacefully into his favorite chair, one arm draped loosely over the sleeping child, a pleased smile pulling at the corners of his mouth even in sleep. Smiling indulgently herself, the mistress looked on at half of her sleeping family, noting once again how alike her husband and oldest daughter were. Two heads full of dark curls, the same porcelain fair skin, highlighted along the cheekbones with a rose colored blush. One tall and thin, the other small and ethereal, both looking more elven than any Hobbit truly had the right to be. She was often told of how her daughter looked very much like her long dead mother-in-law, and even from her childhood memories she could see the truth of the statement. It was the eyes more than anything else…now closed and peaceful in sleep; those overly large eyes, morning glory blue in color, they had long been a staple of the Baggins family, though Frodo's Brandybuck mother had shared that same shade. Her husband's eyes were more singular than most, and her daughter did him justice as well. It often amazed her how she could see so much of her relatives in the faces and forms of her small family. How time weathered on, and memory lived in new faces, new voices with each passing generation. It was odd sometimes, a look, a smile, laugh, gesture…the fall of a lock of hair or the angle of step…familiar but unfamiliar too, a moment belonging to the past, but now finding its way easily into the present and future. 

Padding silently into the room, she took a final moment to capture their image, and to breath in their combined scents of warm bread, milk, sunshine and grass that was a hobbit child, and the friendly musk of old books, dust, ink, seeming memory itself that pervaded her husband at all times. She then took an extra quilt and snugly tucked in her sleeping charges, happy to have been given such a lovely morning greeting. 

10/28/04

Disclaimer:

This story is a work of fiction, no copyright infringement or monetary gain is intended, received, or sought. This is fulfillment of my desire to play in the world of LOTR for a time, a paltry offering of acclaim to a incredibly talented writer. 


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